Up is definitely a critical success (150 review so far, still at 98%), but audiences are definitely loving it as well. Pixar’s sure-to-be mega hit has made it safe to claim that Pixar is at 10 for 10 status.
Estimates for Up‘s opening weekend are in and they’re astonishing! Pixar’s 10th film soared above the competition with an estimated cumulative gross of:
$68,200,000 Final #: $68,108,790
That’s the 3rd largest opening weekend for a Pixar film or any animated release from Walt Disney Pictures. It’s right behind The Incredibles and Finding Nemo’s 70 mil., impressive indeed! Even more impressive, Up would be Pixar’s 10th film in a row (out of 10 features) opening at #1! Here’s how the week played out: Friday brought in $21 mil., Saturday was the big one with $26 mil. and Sunday dropped (as usual) to $20 mil.
At this point it’s safe to say Up is a huge hit trumping the highly anticipated sequel Night at the Museum 2 on its second week, which dropped to $25 million. It’s also a step-up from last year’s WALL•E which opened at 63 million in the first 3 days.
One could speculate Up is on track for $250+ million considering some major factors. These include the expensive 3D aspect, opening in 3766 theatres, Pixar’s past box-office record and the relatively low competition for about a month (until Transformers 2 almost surely tramples on everything), to name a few.
Congratulations to the whole Disney/Pixar team for making this Pixar’s 10th hit!
Where will Up end… up after it’s run is over, tell us what you think?
(via Box Office Mojo)
Last modified: May 31, 2009
I think the Sunday estimates are low. While Box Office Mojo is often pretty good, they sometimes get it wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if UP moved closer to $70M by the time the real numbers are in.
Just guessing….
I actually think the opposite. Estimates for movies’ opening weekends are usually higher than the actual totals, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it drop a little… It will still be a very good total though.
As for its total box office, I think Up has a very good chance of matching Cars in the U.S. We’ll have to see how much Ice Age 3 hurts it in a few weeks.
According to Dateline, Hollywood, we should expect the weekend numbers to go up when the official weekend numbers are in (on Tuesday). Word of mouth is apparently spreading like wildfire, and people are lining up to see the film again . This is GREAT NEWS!